Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Coming Attractions: Much MAAC News Ahead

Consider this a preview of coming attractions ...

We're nearing the completion of team reports for men's and women's programs (just two more for each are coming).

What's next?

Recruiting, of course. We wait longer and longer each season, it seems, to finally learn of incoming players, an exercise always delayed by late transfers and signees. So, the annual "recruiting report" gets pushed back so we'll have as complete a list as possible.

And, then, there's a neat debate going on somewhere in the internet-sphere world of message boards about the MAAC's all-time best players (your scribe specifically remembers seeing some give-and-take, too, about the league's all-time best point guards).

A few years back your correspondent posted personal choices for the MAAC's all-time best players, 13 in all.

At some point in the next few weeks we'll revisit that list, with any necessary updates. A word of warning, though: The initial feeling is that there won't be too many changes.

After that, new lists of all-time bests from the conference: We'll tackle the exercise of identifying the top five players at every position ... maybe we'll even try to identify the conference's all-time top-five coaches, too.

OK, one more note of interest. With the demise of The Sporting News' College Basketball Annual, your scribe no longer has to withhold extensive preview information until that publication's appearance on news stands. It means that at some point later this summer (probably mid-to-late August), we'll produce very early predictions with extensive information on expectations for the 2012-13 season.

An early preview of preseason favorites? Loyola on the men's side and Marist for women.

And, as always, we'll follow that up with full-blown team-by-team previews (late September and into October) on every men's and women's program in the conference.

It all should be good reading during upcoming months.

As always, news about the MAAC never stops. And, as always, thanks for your interest.